Working Poor

IN HIS letter commenting on Myriam Marquez's column recently, Manuel Diaz stated, ``The fact of the matter is that many of the working poor do not pay federal income taxes.'' This was in response to the statement that, under the Republican plan, ``the Social Security surplus would go to the wealthiest at the expense of the working poor.''Diaz is correct that many of the working poor pay no or little federal income tax, but being one of those working poor, let me inform him that working poor do pay into the Social Security fund, and if you happen to be a working-poor self-employed, as myself, you pay 15 percent-plus, not the approximate 7 percent that an employed person, wealthy or poor, pays.

Just in time for the holidays, your low-wage employer wants you to know it really cares. And would you mind tidying up the condiment stand on your way to the soup kitchen? Once again, McDonald's is showing its brilliance at employee relations. In July, recall, the company haplessly offered a sample budget for its employees, omitting the costs of gas and groceries and projecting fantasy monthly rents of $600, car payments of $150 and health-insurance costs of $20. Now the company has favored the working poor with advice on stress relief, savings and health.

America's suburbs, the middle-class Mecca of two-car garages, quiet cul-de-sacs and big-screen TVs, are also home to millions of working-poor families, according to a new study released today. A growing number of suburban families are applying for the Earned Income Tax Credit -- the federal tax refund for low-income workers, concludes the study by The Brookings Institution. In 2001, 6.7 million suburban families filed for the low-income tax refund -- about one out of every three tax-credit recipients.

For the past 12 years, I have served the working poor of Central Florida through the mission, vision and programs of the Community Food and Outreach Center. We have assisted more than 100,000 people every year with food, crisis care, medical services, employment training, education and, most important, hope. We serve wonderful people who are hard-working, dedicated employees trying their best, and yet they find themselves hurting, hungry and hopeless due to decreased hours and low pay. For years, nonprofit professionals have described the families we serve as "the working poor.

Most of us look forward to dismantling welfare from a ''gimme'' system to a short-term, hand-up program, the kind that will require able-bodied adults to work and set a good example for their children to succeed.Now that there's a ''two years and you're out'' federal welfare law, and Florida has its own short-term assistance program in place, what can poor families expect to change for the better?Lots - judging from the responses that candidates for the Florida Legislature sent to questions submitted by the Florida Children's Campaign.

Raymond Carver, a poet and short-story writer who chronicled the lives of America's working poor, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in Port Angeles, Wash. He was 50.Carver, who was married last June to the poet Tess Gallagher, died soon after finishing a book of poetry, A New Path to the Waterfall.Carver came from the hardscrabble world of the down-and-out blue-collar characters in his stories. ''I'm a paid-in-full member of the working poor,'' he said in an interview last spring. ''I have a great deal of sympathy with them.

Here's the problem: Unless we balance the federal budget and start whittling down the national debt, which already is in the trillions of dollars, our children will be left with an astronomical bill and a dim future.Here's the deal proposed by the Republican-led Congress: We can balance the budget within seven years, plus give tax breaks to corporations and better-off families with children.How?By taking money from programs that serve America's poorest children and the elderly and penalizing working families who don't earn enough to qualify for the Grand Old Party's proposed $500-a-child tax credit.

Republicans in Congress are talking about big tax breaks again. Democrats want to spend the federal government's ``surplus'' for all sorts of goodies.The federal budget deficit is supposed to be history from now on, but the $4.35 trillion surplus estimated to result during the next 15 years shouldn't be tossed around by one party or another to curry favor with its interest groups. That money should go to benefit the majority of Americans - to pay off the federal debt first.And then let's help the working poor.

Questions about how Lake County should provide health care tothe working poor soon will be answered.But just having the answers is one thing.Putting them to work is another.A long-awaited study by the North Central Florida Health Planning Council will be completed next month and presented to the Lake County Commission in May.This study is far too important to end up sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust.When health-care planners first looked at the problem of health care for the working poor, it was estimated that about 5,000 Lake Countians fell into this category.

Child care for Florida's working poor and for women getting off welfare would get the largest spending boost ever under a $40 billion-plus state budget proposal Gov. Lawton Chiles plans to unveil Wednesday.Chiles wants to pump another $140 million into subsidized child-care services to guarantee that youngsters are supervised while their low-income parents go to work or get job training.That would provide day care for more than 33,000 children of welfare moms who are under a new deadline to get off state assistance.

It is what some health-care experts call "the missing link": a place where the working poor and their families can go for basic medical needs and continuing care for chronic illness, where someone knows their names and their medical histories and will charge them only $20 per visit. It was the dream of one local pediatrician. Today, it's a reality. Just south of downtown Orlando, Grace Medical Home will hold its grand opening today, though it has been seeing patients for the past month.

The Destiny Foundation of Central Florida, a lifeline for thousands of the working poor, is planning to close at the end of the month -- a victim of the recession and its own success in helping a growing flock of desperate families. The charity, housed in a sprawling, rented warehouse on West Michigan Street in Orlando, has served an estimated 10,000 people a month with subsidized groceries, clothing, medical care, emergency assistance and counseling to help them find jobs and other aid. The closing of one of the area's largest anti-poverty organizations leaves a gaping hole, supporters said, and others predicted that more nonprofits could soon face a similar fate.

Emily Blunt is British to the core, London-born, a veteran of the West End stage and many a BBC production. But in spite of break-out work in her native accent in films such as The Devil Wears Prada, Blunt is finding her greatest fame on the big screen in playing Americans. In Charlie Wilson's War, The Jane Austen Book Club and the new film Sunshine Cleaning, Blunt leaves her Britishness at home and becomes as American as the best of us. "If you're in America a lot, it's easy to get into playing American," she says.

Spending Highlights of the $819 billion economic-recovery plan drafted by House Democrats and President Barack Obama's economic team. Additional debt costs would add $347 billion over 10 years. Many provisions expire in two years. Aid to the poor, unemployed *$43 billion to provide extended unemployment benefits through Dec. 31, increase them by $25 a week and provide job training. *$20 billion to increase food-stamp benefits by 13 percent (total to Florida: Almost $900 million). *$4 billion to provide a one-time additional Supplemental Security Income payment (total to Florida: $246 million)

KISSIMMEE -- They're called the working poor. They have jobs but lack medical insurance. It's either too expensive to purchase through their company, or their jobs don't offer coverage. Just a doctor's visit without insurance could cost them at least $100. At the Osceola Christian Ministry Center, residents can step through the doors of its medical clinic and find four doctors and about a half-dozen nurses waiting to help them. For free. With just one doctor, the medical clinic began in a small room at the center at 700 Union St. Since then, three more doctors have volunteered their time, and two years ago the center added about a 1,000 square feet to its building, giving the clinic three exam rooms and a dispensary.

ST. CLOUD -- Dr. Peter Morrow has undoubtedly seen it more times than he cares to count: local residents who desperately need medical attention but can't afford it. That's why Morrow, a St. Cloud physician, is eagerly anticipating the opening of the area's newest free primary-care clinic, where he will serve as volunteer medical director. The St. Thomas Aquinas Free Medical Clinic is aimed at helping an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 Osceola County residents who don't have health insurance and don't qualify for federal medical assistance such as Medicare or Medicaid.

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's working poor could receive training, child care, transportation and - ultimately - a better-paying job, under wide-ranging legislation that sailed through the Senate on Wednesday. Welfare restrictions imposed by lawmakers in 1996 have helped move about 360,000 Floridians off state aid, but the majority must settle for low-paying, and often part-time employment because of a lack of job skills. At the same time, the state's influential business lobby has been complaining that companies cannot find qualified workers in this full-employment economy, leaving many jobs unfilled.

As I read the commentary by Linda Chapin, director of the Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies at the University of Central Florida, about the working poor, I was reminded that it is not just the elderly who are feeling the pinch. Many of us who are retired see our children working harder but never really getting ahead. Even with health insurance, some of these children can't afford the co-pay. Or they are seeing their hours cut. Rather than working a 40 hours week, they are now working a 30- or 35-hour week.

On Sunday, Linda Chapin wrote about the working poor getting the short end of the stick. It is time that rich people with college degrees quit describing working people as poor folks. If you obey the law, have a job, a wife who is most likely working, and children who aren't in juvenile custody, you may be many things -- but poor isn`t one of them. Being poor is a state of mind in which one gives up and accepts handouts. The people Chapin describes are the "working broke." My family was broke at least seven days a month, but we never spent a poor day in our lives.